Always a Bridesmaid Read online

  “Did you try calling him?” Sidney asked when their mother had made her exit.

  “He’s on his honeymoon, apparently.”

  Sidney grimaced. “They told me the same thing. Did you know?” Max hesitated long enough that Sidney whipped toward him. “Max? You knew?”

  He shook his head. “There was a clause in the separation agreements. About future children. The wording struck me as oddly precise, but I told myself I was being paranoid. He’s never made time for people—I couldn’t imagine him taking the time to have an affair, let alone get married.”

  “The last time I saw him he was an ass to my fiancé, but he never said a word about his own. Mom said he was trying to be paternal. Trying to show he was protective of me, but I just wanted to scream, ‘Now? Now you’ve decided to care about my life?’”

  “Better late than never?” Max couldn’t manage a drop of sincerity and Sidney grimaced.

  “Do you think he really loves her?” A soft vulnerability hid in his sister’s voice.

  They were separated by the width of the room and Max couldn’t tell if he was supposed to go to her. They weren’t huggers, the Dewitts. She’d probably check him for a fever if he got all touchy-feely on her.

  “We always thought he was incapable of caring about anyone,” she went on. “What if he was just incapable of caring about us?”

  “Hey.” He did cross the room then, tugging her into his arms, Dewitt stoicism be damned. “He’s the broken one. Not you.”

  “Not us,” she insisted, hugging him back.

  But Max wasn’t so sure.

  Sidney had always been different. She’d always cared about people. About romance and feelings. She created dream weddings for a living. Max was his father’s son. He cared about being the best. About pushing himself farther and harder than anyone else was willing to go.

  Even when he’d taken time off to travel, it hadn’t been to unwind and relax. It hadn’t been to find himself—unless the version of himself he’d been looking for was just as incapable of slowing down. He’d built himself in his father’s image. And why? To get his approval? To be good enough? Only to have the old man turn around and give the attention he’d been begging for all his life to his twenty-something secretary. Claudine.

  He almost wished his mother hadn’t told them the name. It made her real. The woman, born after he was, who was going to give birth to his half-sibling.

  Max reached for the one aspect of his life that always made sense. “I need to get back to work.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Common Grounds closed without fanfare.

  Her customers bought their last coffees, told her they were sorry to see her go, and went about their lives, resigned to going a few miles down the road for Starbucks in the future, the loss of Common Grounds a tiny blip in their lives.

  Some asked her what she would be doing next, seeming relieved when she told them she’d be working down the street at Lacey’s Cakes for a while and they wouldn’t be completely losing her as a source of baked goods.

  Others stocked up on the beans of their favorite coffees and got the supplier information from Parvati so they could support their expensive coffee habits without her as the go-between.

  But no one cried. Not even Parv. In fact, she felt pretty good about the whole situation. It was a relief to pay the final bills—and know there wouldn’t be another round coming. Every piece of furniture that was sold off after they were officially closed for business was another weight lifted off her back. She felt lighter every day—until she could almost float right through the ceiling with the freedom of it.

  She wasn’t a business owner anymore. And it felt incredible.

  Her only regret in the whole thing was Madison and Anna.

  Anna had landed an internship with an indie music label that started in January, so she’d found her feet, but Madison had been evasive about her future plans. The two had been even more snippy and contentious with one another over the final few weeks, but it wasn’t until they showed up on the final day of the lease to pick up their checks that Parv got the first inkling why.

  She didn’t mean to eavesdrop. She wasn’t used to Common Grounds being so quiet, to voices carrying so easily in the newly empty space. The door to the kitchen had been propped open by the movers who’d taken out the ovens. Parv came out of her office with their checks in her hand and froze in the kitchen when she heard the low, intense note in Madison’s voice carrying from the front of house.

  Madison who was always chirpy and happy and never said anything in that serious, intent way.

  “I love Common Grounds, but maybe ultimately this is a good thing.”

  “How can this possibly be a good thing?” Anna snapped, true to form.

  “I love you.”

  Parv had started to walk again, to intervene in the fight, but she went still at those words—and from the silence echoing from the front room, so did Anna—who had never been speechless a day in her life.

  “I was never going to tell you that,” Madison went on. “I was going to go on, coming to work every day because you were here. Even when you weren’t on shift, there was always this feeling when I was here, like you might drop by to pick up a check or check your schedule. I love Common Grounds, but I came in every day to see you. And I know you don’t feel the same way. I know you don’t even really like me, but that’s my truth and I wanted to be brave enough to tell you before I never see you again.”

  There was a pause, then the sound of footsteps carried clearly though the open door, but Parv was still surprised when Madison walked through.

  “I’m sorry,” Parv blurted, caught listening, but Madison smiled, head high.

  “I’m not.” She took her check from Parv’s numb fingers, hugged her quick and hard and whispered, “Thank you for everything, Parv.”

  Then she was gone. Leaving two stunned women behind her.

  Parv crossed into the front room to find Anna leaning against the counter—one of the few furniture pieces that remained—staring into space with a baffled expression. She looked up at the sound of Parv’s footsteps, a frown pulling down between her pierced brows. “What the hell was that?”

  “I take it you didn’t suspect she had feelings for you.”

  “Hell no. Did you?”

  Parv shook her head. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

  Anna’s face scrunched up. “She’s just so…”

  Wholesome? Innocent? “Not your type?”

  “Bambi?” Anna snorted. “You could say that.” She shook her head. “I thought she was straight. She flirts with the male customers. It used to make me crazy, watching her go all simpering and sweet.”

  Parv had never seen Madison flirt with anyone, but she kept her opinion to herself.

  “I thought she hated me,” Anna went on, bemused. “She should hate me. I’m awful to her.”

  “Don’t shoot the messenger, but did you ever wonder why you’re so awful to her?”

  “She’s so annoying,” Anna said without hesitation. “Little Miss Kansas Perfect who everything always came easily to. She’s one of those people who’s just gonna float through life without any problems and I’m supposed to what? Cheer her on when she gets everything I want without even trying?”

  “Okay…” Parv had thought Anna might have unrequited feelings for Madison too, but evidently that wasn’t the case. “But maybe there’s more to Madison than you thought.”

  “I guess,” Anna acknowledged without enthusiasm.

  “You could call her—”

  “No.” Anna picked up the check Parv had set on the counter beside her. “No offense, Boss, but I don’t need you matchmaking for me. And Madison can make all the cute speeches she wants, but she’s not my girl.”

  * * * * *

  And so Common Grounds closed. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

  Sidney didn’t come by—and Parv told herself that she understood. That Sid’s schedule was crazy these days and
if she’d been able to make it she would have.

  Max didn’t call—but Parv told herself that was for the best. Their relationship had gotten muddied by her over-reliance on him. It was good for them to take this space.

  Every single member of her family called—and each of them seemed more baffled than the last by Parv’s insistence that she really was going to work for barely more than minimum wage icing cakes for a few months while she decided what to do next.

  It was a strange experience, working at Lacey’s Cakes. She hadn’t had a boss in five years, which took some getting used to. She wasn’t used to having set hours—and for the expectation to be that she wouldn’t work except during those hours. The sudden abundance of free time was disorienting.

  She suddenly had time for books again. And movies. And binge-watching the shows she’d overheard her customers talking about for years.

  But the best part was that she had time to go shopping with Katie when she came home for Thanksgiving.

  She’d always made time for her family and friends, but it was a whole new feeling when she didn’t have to make the time. When it was just there. Hers to do with what she would without the guilt that she really ought to be working if she was going to make her business a success.

  The freedom was phenomenal.

  “I thought you already bought a wedding dress,” Parv asked as she held the door of the exclusive Eden bridal boutique for their Saturday appointment. One of Katie’s brothers had a cross country meet that afternoon and Angie had pulled carpool duty so it was just the two of them at the store.

  “I did,” Katie admitted, “but what if it’s the wrong dress? Everything hinges around the dress. I just want to try on two or three more and then I know I’ll be sure. Besides, this way you can try on some of the bridesmaid dresses I’ve been considering. I made the appointment for both of us.”

  “You want me to be a bridesmaid?”

  “Of course!” Katie blinked at her, startled. “Didn’t I ask you? God, I swear I have wedding brain. It will be a miracle if I pass any of my classes. I don’t know how my mom did it. Though she says it was easier back then. All I know is I feel like my brains will leak out of my ears if I try to remember one more thing. But I couldn’t get married without you in the wedding. You’re my favorite aunt. Just don’t tell the others I said that.”

  “You’re my favorite too.”

  The sales clerk—who called herself a consultant—arrived then, saving Parv from tearing up all over Katie. When they were back in their dressing room, sipping champagne that Katie wasn’t technically old enough for while the sales consultant darted off to collect an array of dresses, Parv found herself once again remembering the first time she held Katie.

  “I never thought you’d be getting married before me.”

  “You just haven’t found the right guy.” Katie looked up from the wedding magazine she’d been flipping through. “What about that guy you brought to my engagement party? He’s cute.”

  “He’s a friend.”

  “So? Jonah was a friend.”

  Parvati resisted the urge to explain that it was a little different when you weren’t in high school anymore. Though was it? Sometimes Max had her wishing she could pass him a note in study hall just to get some clarity. “It isn’t like that.”

  “But you want to get married? Because my folks talk about you sometimes and my dad thinks you might be a feminist who doesn’t think she needs a man—which is his code for lesbian.”

  Oh joy. Her family was talking about her. “I think a lot of people in our family thought that, but no. I’m not a lesbian. Or a man-hating feminist.”

  The sales consultant reappeared then and all further discussion of feminism was tabled in favor of trying on poofy dresses. And they were poofy. Katie seemed to have a bigger is better approach to bridal wear. The circumference of her skirts would have made Scarlet O’Hara proud.

  Parv stood in her own poofy dress, eyeing the miles of fabric keeping a perimeter around Katie. “How is Jonah going to stand close enough to you for the first dance?”

  Katie had been twirling on the pedestal and now frowned into the mirror. “That’s just what my mother said. She likes the one we already have.”

  “Which is smaller?”

  “It’s an A-line. Classic, my mother called it. And it’s nice. It’s got some lace and some off-the-shoulder stuff going on, but it just doesn’t make me feel like a princess.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather feel like you?”

  “I get to feel like me every day. I want to feel like a princess when I get married. But Mom thought the ball gowns were over the top.”

  Angie was one to talk. Her wedding dress had needed its own zipcode. “What does Jonah think? He’s the one who has to dance with that skirt.”

  Katie gasped, horrified. “Jonah can’t know anything about the dress! That’s the one part of the wedding he is absolutely not allowed to have an opinion on. Not that he has opinions on any of it.”

  The edge of bitterness in Katie’s voice set warning bells clamoring in Parv’s mind, but the sales consultant swept in with a mermaid gown then and it was several minutes and two gowns later before she had a chance to bring it up again.

  “Are you worried Jonah doesn’t care about the wedding?”

  “No, he cares,” Kateri insisted, executing a tight turn on the pedestal and frowning. “I can’t move my knees. I think we have to eliminate mermaid cuts. I am not waddling around on my wedding day. But I like yours.” She waved Parv onto the pedestal in front of the mirror array.

  Parv actually liked hers too. It was charcoal gray, long, and silky. The bodice gathered to one side just below the bust with a little pearl clasp. Classy and simple. The kind of thing Angie would approve of. “Does it go with the dress you already bought?”

  Katie wrinkled her nose, considering. “It does, actually. But if I choose that bridesmaid dress am I admitting my mother was right about my wedding dress?”

  “There are worse things than your mother being right.”

  Katie snorted. “Are there?”

  The sales consultant reappeared with another dress—a designer number that cost more than Parv’s car and was too wide to fit inside it. Katie sighed as she swished the skirts back and forth. “If a girl can’t feel like a princess on her wedding day, when can she?”

  “Prom?” Parv commented and watched Katie freeze.

  “Oh God. It does look like my prom dress, doesn’t it? My wedding pictures would look exactly like my prom photos. Damn it. I hate it when my mother’s right.”

  “So no ball gown?”

  “I don’t know!” Katie wailed. “How do people make these decisions? It’s like as soon as you decide to get married you have to make eleven million other decisions and everything matters and everyone is going to judge you for every little thing and no one can make the decision for you because it’s your wedding and there’s no right or wrong—at least that’s what they tell you—but there is right or wrong because everyone is watching you to see what you decide. Even the card stock is important because the invitations set the tone. God, I am so sick of making decisions.”

  Katie sank onto the pedestal, swaths of expensive fabric billowing around her. “Do you have any idea how isolating it is to plan a wedding? It’s supposed to be about bringing the two of you together, but that’s a big fat lie. My mom wants to plan everything, but I still have to make all the decisions. She’s always saying she can’t choose for me. It isn’t her wedding.”

  “Can’t Jonah make some of the decisions?”

  “Oh please. Jonah wants to get married. He wants a big wedding with all our friends and family. He wants it to be perfect for me. But the second I ask him what he thinks about invitations, or seating charts, or centerpieces, or colors, or venues, or even what kind of tuxedo he wants to wear, all he says is whatever you want, sweetie and you know what’s best, babe and I just want to scream. It feels like I’m doing it all by myself.”
/>   Parv’s heart ached at the panic and frustration in Katie’s voice. She came to crouch as close as she could to Katie with the obstacle of the skirts, reaching out a hand to touch her niece’s shoulder. “Maybe you’re rushing into things. You’re so young. You could take some time—”

  “God, you sound just like my mother!” Katie shook her off.

  “I do?”

  Parv’s genuine shock seemed to calm Katie down. She caught Parv’s hand, linking their fingers. “I’m sorry. I just love him, okay? And I’ve decided to marry him and I would love it if you guys could get behind me.”

  “We are behind you. All the way.” And if it fell apart, they’d be there to pick up the pieces. Always.

  “Good.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Parv was behind Katie all the way—but she still worried. Especially since it sounded like Jonah wasn’t pulling his weight as the groom. But luckily she had access to a couple of experts and she brought up her concerns at the next Girls’ Night with Tori and Sidney.

  Sidney’s show was taking a break from filming over the holidays, which meant she finally had time for regular Girls’ Nights again—but since she was using the break to get a jump on her own wedding planning the only topics of conversation tended to be Sidney’s wedding and Tori’s morning sickness.

  “It happens all the time,” Sidney said when Parv brought up her concerns for Katie. “The grooms think they’re giving you exactly what you want when really they’re just delegating stress. Josh is doing it too. You’re so good at this, it’s what you do, whatever you choose will be perfect, honey—which means all the responsibility is on the bride. And all the stress is on the bride. Which is why women turn into Bridezillas and wedding planners can charge so much for their services.”

  “Hallelujah,” Tori said, toasting with a glass of club soda she was trying to use to calm her stomach. “Speaking of which, we also pay our assistants very well—and now that Sidney’s doing the show, I’m completely overworked. And I’m going to be going on maternity leave in a few months and we’re really going to need more help then. Do you have any interest? It wouldn’t be exotic, mostly answering phones and making appointments, at least for the first few months, but you could work your way up.”